Keir Starmer "sick and tired" of hearing about children who aren't school-ready

[Kirova]

I get the point he's trying to make, of course, but it seems like a stick to beat parents with (and particularly mothers, of course). There's no sense in saying you want all children to be in the same place when they start school. Apart from anything else, some are nearly a year younger than others in their cohort, so clearly they are not going to be in the same place.

My youngest daughter was born premature, has a significant hearing impairment and various other difficulties. She will soon be two, and while she's doing brilliantly, I doubt she'll be "school-ready" by the government's current definition when she is four.

Not sure what my point is exactly, it just seems like another absurd over-simplification on the theme of failing our children, state of the country, etc.

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Denial is a bit silly when these people openly admit it! This took me seconds to find! You think these young single mothers that are rushing out 8 kids in quick succession are doing a brilliant job of potty training them all and teaching basic functions! Please tell us your theory on what in society has changed to cause all this if you don't think its this benefit culture or having loads of very young dependent kids at the same time. The truth may hurt you but ignoring it is hurting kids a lot more.

Whoa. My kids are ND. I get DLA for one of them. I work full time yet still get UC to top up my wage. I’m a single parent - not by choice. My UC work commitments are actually turned off due to me getting carers element but I choose to work. I’ve just increased from part time to full time.

However, I work in education. Those parents who don’t work due to their ND children are not working due to the massive needs of their children. No one chooses to have a disabled child. Diagnostic waiting lists are years and years long so you don’t have a child and hope they might get diagnosed so you don’t have to work. DLA and PIP claims are often rejected unless the proof of real need above and beyond generated care.

I think the main thing being referred to regarding ‘school ready’ is basic toilet training. There seems to have been a massive shift in attitude towards this in the last 10/15 years. I‘m not against anything a parent wants to do but even if you have a July/August baby having a child of 4 who isn’t fully toilet trained (at least during the day) is absolutely ridiculous unless there are additional needs or medical reasons. This isn’t about parent-shaming, it’s about parents who have got so lost in letting children ‘choose’ everything from what they eat and when and what quantity to if they want to wear a nappy or not. These parents have either forgotten how to guide and teach basic skills or they use the child’s unwillingness as an excuse and give-up. In a lot of cases it’s gentle parenting to the extreme, in some it’s just lazy. Either way, I missed out on being able to make toilet-training someone else’s problem. In fact, my local pre-school, which started from age 3, wouldn’t take children unless they were fully toilet trained. I’d be interested to know if she had managed to keep this rule.

I can't be bothered to argue, you are one of those people who hijacks everything and makes it about you and your story! People are asking me why women on benefits are still able to breed like rabbits and I don't know! They obviously know loopholes to exploit don't they. I'm being demonised here but why do you think the government is making benefit reforms? Because the system isn't working and it's being too exploited. Don't start pretending that I criticised disabled kids because I didn't! But you seem to want all kids to written off as disabled for such as ADHD? My 51 year old brother is in an 8 year waiting list for ADHD assessment that he's likely had all his life but he's never been disabled, he has friends that are ADHD and aren't disabled. That's another bad aspect of today's society that parents are writing so many kids off! If they grow up viewing themselves as disabled and needing benefits, how do you readjust that mindset to make sure they don't just go into a life of benefits as adults.
We are heading for a future where a larger part of society wants benefits than there is people working to pay for it.

Wow, I know it's not funny really, but that had me laughing out loud, you write incredibly well.

Stop using such dehumanising language.

Exactly.

I’m not hijacking and making it about me. I’m not writing off kids with disabilities. But adhd and ASD are both disabilities and depending on each person’s presentation that can be different. For some people they can be massively disabling - I’ve taught children who are totally non verbal, who can’t read and write, who can’t use the toilets, who can’t be in a room with other children, who have learning disabilities so severe that they will never be independent. No one chooses to have children with such debilitating disabilities but some people do and they need to support to be able to keep those children safe. Other people with the same ‘label’ can manage education, get qualifications, get jobs etc but likely find some aspects of that condition disabling such as the fatigue from masking, fatigue from functioning how society wants them to function. And some disabilities aren’t as obvious from an early age as others. Hence a lot of children being diagnosed in their teen years or even adults being diagnosed.

It's actually having my child in nursery making toilet training difficult as it's different there to home and I'm trying to focus him on the nursery setting.

If I was a sahm I think we'd have cracked it completely but I have to work, so it is what is.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead yes i wish'early elimination communication' had been more widely advertised. I kept reading the 'wait til they are ready' stuff until it was almost too late.

People have quoted my post about ten times. I wasn’t sharing my views that nursery is better, just relaying what KS said and what he seemed to mean by it. I don’t use nursery, my eldest went from 3.5 to preschool and my youngest is still at home. I don’t have an agenda at all, it was early in the thread and people were wanting clarification on his comments.

I was lucky Dmum suggested routine training for toitet training when waiting for signs didn't work and DS problems aren't as bad.

I also raised early concerns with DS speach - he had a wide vocbulary -- but a few sounds weren't right. Did get him assesed but wasn't bad enough to get any help - though was helpfully told even 5 years before it would have been. So looked on-line for support.

Then preschool - reception and Y1 they kept doing hearing tests some in school some we were just told to get him to - which we did no input on timing or location - and he'd just pass and just fail - I think it was averaging one or two a term. The only thing that happened was it was triggered another hearing test.

No extra support suggested at home no support put in at school and more worrying no concneession. We flagged up his shocking poor working memory -to be told it was unimportant. So he can't remember instructions and he it's likely he couldn't hear them in first place - but him occaionally struggling with instructions in school was poor parenting .

Interesting all the talk of aged 7 being when many other counties start school. DS was 7 in Y3 and that was year he stopped having issues - he was in top groups I though because of home support school thought and had teachers say on here becuase Y3 often when kids even out/up and hit their level.

I'm skeptical of all they well ND/SEN kids are all spotted early - not my experience or experience of most SEN/ND familes we know or when they are that there is any support there and my kids are nearly done with education and over time cuts have just got deeper and services fewer.

Is it possible that toilet training is much harder now because disposable nappies are just much more comfortable?

I actually remember when I myself was toilet trained, aged 2.5 in the 70s. The terry nappies that were used in the 70s were incredibly uncomfortable when wet and it was a massive relief to be out of them.

I think that for kids these days, disposable nappies are made to feel dry to avoid nappy rash and maybe it just not as bad wearing them.

I obviously don't mean that this is an element in the SEN children (including mine) but it might be an element for those mothers who have NT kids who are not training early.

I imagine that if we Mums were still having to hand wash terry nappies like my granny did, then it would focus our minds considerably.

My 3.5 year old son has just been placed on the waiting list for an ASD assessment and they are going for an EHCP. Might be area dependent but I know of other boys that age as well who are already been flagged up and waiting for assessment.

Basic parenting is just that. Why should pre school/nurseries/childminders/schools do the parent’s basic job?
Yes there will always be a few (very few) children who, for some reason, cannot reach the basic requirements for starting school but that isn’t a reason to defer education for a majority which has been suggested.

I wasn't implying no one gets flagged at 3 - and I'm sure some schools/setting are better with support than others.

My newphew who has a disgonsed dad with ADHD and who nursry flagged up and school is struggling with - been told can't get near a waiting list till 7 and waiting lists are long.

So yes it must be area dependent and possibly which conditions they have.

My DC tend to fall into intellgent and just about coping group - as do many of their friends who get ignore till they hit walls. DD1 finally got diagnosied at 19 with conditions I have been diagnosed with and have been raising concenrs about since she was 3 and which had adversly impacted her.

Yeah I do sympathise as my nephew who is six has had to wait nearly four years for an assessment and can't get into a SEN school. He is more severe on the autism spectrum as well. They live in a different part of the county. I suspect my son will be the same as your DC. Intelligent and can go to school but not autistic enough for help. I am not sure he will get the EHCP the school are after to be honest but glad it is being noticed now.

He doesn't need a diagnosis to get support. It's illegal to require a diagnosis. DD3 was awarded a special school (independent because she's highly academic and all the state special schools are for LD) without a single diagnosis. Her ASD, ADHD, and OCD were diagnosed later.

To be honest I do agree that you’re looking for something to be offended with.

In your eyes, your child is perfect and special or whatever - but his comment isn’t directly addressed to you or your family, obviously deaf people aren’t magically going to get perfect hearing and she will need adjustments to schooling etc

The issue he is referencing is that for society as a whole, generally children are further back in the development now than they were before. That wider problem, is concerning. I’m in my 20s so I’m not acting like I’ve seen children develop throughout decades, but even I can see there’s changes from the last decade when I was at school. If loads of children are starting school with lack of understanding of basic things like controlling bladder/requiring nappies it suggests there’s been changes in parenting approaches as a whole.

@ChangingWeight I’m 40 years older than you and you are 100% correct. Obviously a handful of dc were not school ready down the decades but most were. I do think parents have to do the heavy lifting here. Nurseries will just put dc in disposable nappies for an easy life!

@OhDear111 If you think that nurseries are holding back kids from getting toilet trained, then is the change possibly explained by the fact that so many kids are in nurseries now? (I have no opinion one way or the other.)

Mr Starmer was suggesting that the free nursery hours offered by the government would somehow solve this problem, but it sounds like it may not if your theory is right.

I sent my ds to preschool and they flagged that he was not school ready but all the things that they did just made everything harder. They had to refer to other agencies so that ofsted would give them their "outstanding"rating, but the other agencies took up a huge amount of my time and achieved nothing.

It just made everything more stressful and prevented us from actually solving the problems.

I don't think that putting in children in nursery will help.

It isn't like he's going to put toilet training into the early years curriculum and therefore that means that there'll be no universal approach to toilet training in these settings.

All it will do is mean children are at a much larger child to adult ratio, more of the time, with more inconsistencies. Some children are much more adaptable than others and can cope with these inconsistencies, but some aren't as adaptable.

2yo funding was originally brought in to cover areas where families were not necessarily providing the right support for their DC.

No, that isn't a reason to defer education for the majority. The reason is that quantity of time in class room does not equate with quality of education. The whole system needs a rethink, as it's safe to say the pre-15 education system in the UK is not working as well as it should, and literacy and numeracy skills are not on a par with those of the more successful countries.

It's also clear that education is used as as ideological and political football - educators don't know what to expect from one electoral term until the next party is voted in. For starters, the unfit-for-purpose national curriculum needs overhauling and it would help were power devolved to the LEAs and to people who know how education actually works, as opposed to those in Westminster with political points to score.

This country does have a different demographic compared to some of the more successful countries. But our curriculum does need an overhaul.